


Snuffed Candle

by Yangs Sunglasses (Nilenium)



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Unrequited Love, end of love, introspective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:48:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28509189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nilenium/pseuds/Yangs%20Sunglasses
Summary: Lizzie thinks about how Tommy really views her and comes to a painful conclusion. Written in response to season 2 finale.
Relationships: Tommy Shelby/Lizzie Stark
Comments: 6
Kudos: 15





	Snuffed Candle

Lizzie held on to it for a long time, this hopeful, warm feeling. It was like a little flame which burned in her breast. She cupped her hand around it gently as if protecting a candle from being blown out by a chance gust of wind. Every time Tommy greeted her with an easy nod, sometimes that half-smile of his, whenever he treated her like a trusted employee, the same as anyone else in the company – it was easier to forget. To believe her shameful, dirty past was truly in the past. That it didn’t actually exist, because if even a man like him, who was a part of it, could act that way, then surely…

What happened at Epsom disabused her of the notion. A silly belief. A little bit embarrassing. How could she ever let herself think that he’d really forgotten it all? Tommy Shelby remembered everything, most of all about his people. And oh, she was one of them. He saw a use for her, when she told him of her typewriting, and, without any bragging, she was good at the job, but when he needed a whore to use as a bait, who did he think of first? That’s right, her. That’s what he saw in her. No matter that she was finished with it, at his orders no less. “No exceptions”? What a joke. He should’ve said, “no exceptions unless it’s convenient for me.” That would’ve been more sincere.

What stung the most wasn’t even that he asked, but that he let her think this was going to be a normal outing. She came with an assumption that he needed a pretty girl on his arm as he rubbed elbows with the elite.

Many of her assumptions were proven wrong that day.

Not only Tommy didn’t let her prepare for this mission, and it was a mission – he was her officer and she was his soldier in this, just like everyone in the Peaky Blinders – but he did that, knowing she would follow his orders anyway. He sprung it on her suddenly, giving her no choice. There was no plan B in case she said no – and that meant he was sure she’d do it. For him, because he asked. Because she trusted him, despite everything, when he promised he’d come before anything happened.

And then he didn’t come, not fast enough, and she was broken again. She shouldn’t have been so surprised in hindsight – Tommy was many things, but a savior he was not. At least not for her.

As she laid in her bed that she only ever slept in alone, on clean sheets, in her nicer apartment she got with the money from the secretary job, Lizzie thought about the derby for a long time. She turned his words and actions over in her head, because with Tommy everything was calculated, just as she analyzed herself, looking for reasons.

She was sure of one thing – if he’d given her a real choice, if he’d asked before she’d come there – she would’ve refused. And then he could’ve just paid a real whore to do the job, instead of turning her back into one.

Except that’s apparently what she was and always would be in his eyes. As nice as he was to pretend otherwise up to this point, it was still just an act.

Lizzie smiled bitterly. How easy it was for Tommy to turn things on their head –defeat to triumph, secretary to whore, kindness to cruelty…

She let herself be fooled – thinking that he actually cared for her. Lizzie knew he would never love her back, that was clear from the start, but she really thought he wouldn’t put her in harm’s way and certainly not like this. He knew what it would do to her to go back to her old ways – he simply didn’t care.

No matter how staunch she was in protecting her little flame, it had no chance to survive this hurricane. That day something died in her and she let it. The candle was snuffed and all that remained was a cold certainty in its place.

Lizzie went back to work, she greeted and smiled at Tommy. She could pretend too that nothing ever happened, because in the end of the day he was still her boss, he’d still given her the opportunity to change her life, overlooking the past. For that, he’d have her loyalty. But not anything else. Not anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still watching the show, so this might be OOC after all, but this is how I imagine Lizzie would feel like after events of season 2, so I wrote it. I might next attempt to write Tommy's POV on her in s1.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
